


I think I made you up inside my head.

by thinkbucket



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - School, F/F, Frank being a dick, Villanelle being a bigger dick, Villanelle writing villanelles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-08-23 10:51:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20241649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkbucket/pseuds/thinkbucket
Summary: Someone keeps giving Eve villanelles and she'd really like to know who.





	1. she’s professional

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Sylvia Plath's mad girl's love song, featured. (disclaimer that just bc I quote from someone doesn't mean I agree w/ everything they said and did, and I may also be quoting from other poets during the course of this fic). First chapter is really short because I'm still figuring out what I'm doing lol

_I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;_  
_ I lift my lids and all is born again._  
_ (I think I made you up inside my head.)_

_The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,_  
_ And arbitrary blackness gallops in:_  
_ I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._

_I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed_  
_ And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane._  
_ (I think I made you up inside my head.)_

_God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:_  
_ Exit seraphim and Satan's men:_  
_ I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._

_I fancied you'd return the way you said,_  
_ But I grow old and I forget your name._  
_ (I think I made you up inside my head.)_

_I should have loved a thunderbird instead;_  
_ At least when spring comes they roar back again._  
_ I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead._  
_ (I think I made you up inside my head.)_

“Fuck!”

Eve Polastri lets out a strangled yell of frustration and yanks off the poem that’s been stapled to the student record she had just picked up.

It was funny the first time this happened, but now it’s just becoming annoying.

The poem is scrawled across a memo, disregarding all of the little boxes, like a child coloring outside of the lines. Only, when you’re older than six, it’s a little less cute and a little more likely to be interpreted as lazy or rebellious. (It’s probably both.)

It’s not signed, but Eve would hazard a guess that it’s the same person who left the other seven poems (all villanelles, she’d looked them all up, why are they all villanelles?) hidden among her papers almost daily. She can’t be completely sure, since whoever is leaving these uses a different pen and handwriting style every single time (last time: Expo marker and all caps; this time: ballpoint pen and loopy half script), but they are always on the same garish yellow memo. If Eve weren’t so annoyed by this point, she’d be very impressed, but as it stands, she is very annoyed, and only a little bit impressed.

And maybe also a little bit flattered, if she’s being honest with herself (which she is not).

She’s married, she’s professional, and she’s very much not flattered by this secret admirer that keeps sending her poems about love and death.

Equally impressive (again, assuming she is impressed at all) is the fact that each poem has managed to be slipped in her papers when Eve wasn’t aware. It’s a bit alarming now, realizing how often Eve just leaves her purse or files unattended, but it’s not like anyone tried to snoop through them before this. She’s a school counselor, not a secret agent.

Eve sulks into the counselors’ offices, muttering under her breath about stalkers not having any respect for people’s private belongings.

“Another one, have you?” Elena, a fellow school counselor, calls from her desk, chuckling when she sees Eve enter the office suite holding the yellow memo in her right hand and crumpling the student report she just printed ten minutes ago in her left.

Eve ignores her as she declares to the suite, “I want the names of every staff member that uses this brand of memo pad,” brandishing her poem high in the air for all to see. (So far, the evidence has led them to believe it is indeed a coworker that is plaguing Eve with poems, as only staff members have access to the office mailboxes, where Eve found a third poem about love, wolves and death, scribbled in red crayon. And the print and copy room, where Eve just received her latest on _surprise!_ more love and death.)

“And shall I organize that list alphabetically or by which of our colleagues seems thirstiest?” Hugo pipes up from the corner office, where he can be heard spinning in his chair and tapping a pencil like a drumstick. 

Elena raises an eyebrow. “I’d wager you’re the thirstiest in the entire damn district, I’d watch what you say, Hugo.”

Hugo wheels to his office door and jabs his pencil in Elena’s direction. “While I will not deny that accusation, I will point out that I only use post-its. And Ms. Polastri isn't my type.”

Elena raises both her eyebrows, and then she turns back to Eve. “So Eve, what will you do once you know who it is?"

Eve blinks as though she’s never considered this question before.

She has not considered this question before.

The thing is, what annoys her the most isn’t that she keeps getting poems slipped unbeknownst to her, but that she can’t figure out who is doing it and why.

Is it just to fuck with her? Because they are really and truly succeeding.

Initially, she’d thought it was Niko, but when she pecked him on the cheek and asked him what prompted his sudden romanticism, Niko gave her a very blank look that made him seem very unattractive and made her wonder why she married him again. It certainly was not for his poems or his looks.

She keeps the memos tucked in her bottom drawer of her desk, and never mentioned them to him again.

“Maybe I’ll introduce them to Niko. He needs lessons in wooing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't be like niko; woo me with reviews


	2. she's going to have to explain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> poem referenced is "It Is the Pain" by William Empson.

Here’s the thing, Eve thinks poetry is shit. 

She can recall sitting in Language Arts when she was an unimpressed, dead inside adolescent, rolling her eyes at the teacher who waxed too long and yet not eloquently enough on the beauty of poetry and metaphors and allusions. She thought it was so pretentious that people should say one yet mean another. Why do people need to do so much damn decoding for a string of rhymes? It’s not cute. 

She’s thought this for most of her life, up until she began to be on the receiving end of these strings of rhymes. And suddenly, to her horror, it’s kinda cute. 

She should be alarmed, she really should be creeped the hell out, that someone is watching her and sneaking up on her and slipping_ fucking poems _ in her personal belongings but all she is —

Is absolutely flattered and irritated. And irritated that she’s flattered. And overall. Just overall this is getting too much, and she wants it to keep going. 

And sure, maybe if Eve was a tad happier in her marriage with Niko, maybe if he was a little less of what he is right now and a little more of whatever the hell she finds herself needing (which is what exactly? She’s still not sure), but maybe she’d be succumbing less to the wiles of this invisible admirer, maybe she’d have a little bit more of a stranger danger and wake up to the fact that this very well could be someone like that dickswab Frank the Economics teacher painstakingly hand writing out all these villanelles for Eve.

It’s not though, it’s really probably not. God, she hopes it’s not. That’d be a downer.

Is it the fact that someone sent her these poems specifically for her? That someone read these with _ Eve _ in mind and wrote them out on memos _ thinking _of her? Is her life that boring that the smallest bit of attention has her blushing? This isn’t even smart, like it could be Frank, and would she still be blushing then? A bit green looking, more like. 

She doesn’t think it’s Frank though. If the notes he sends regularly about “Rob has evident issues with authority figures when he is asked to sit the fuck down, please address,” “Vlad thinks economics class is a joke, refuses to take anything I say seriously,” “Karen is illiterate, please convince her to learn to read or advise her to drop out,” have taught her anything, it’s that Frank has chicken feet for hands and could never feign legible handwriting if his life depended on it. And also that he’s a shit teacher.

And so. 

She’s flattered that she has an admirer. It’s cute. A little creepy. Still, cute. 

And, you know, God, it’s not like she’s actually considering having an _ affair _ with this admirer of hers, no. She just finds herself wondering what it’d be like, to know who’s sending these to her. Because she’s curious, that’s all. Flattered, and curious. And well, she’s just been so bored recently, and so sometimes, she finds herself opening the bottom drawer of her desk and taking out her stack of seven villanelles. Rereading them. Tracing the letters on them, wondering how they held their pen or pencil or marker or even that goddamn paintbrush that took up the entire front and back of two memos. (She’d immediately sussed out the art teacher before determining that Aaron was way too in love with himself to be sending Eve deathly love letters.) She wants to know the hand that wrote these, why they singled out Eve and not someone else. She wants to know what they see in her, if they do, wants to know if she knows this mystery person well or only knows their face in passing, wants to know when she’s getting her next poem as much as she hates it.

Because as much as Eve is begrudgingly beginning to admit that she kinda enjoys this, she also still really really really hates it.

Like, who the fuck thinks it’s ok to go in a person’s purse and plant a poem? Or merely the fact that they know where she is, what she’s doing or where she is going to be so that they can stealthily slip her these innocuous seeming memos. They can see her but she can’t see them? Infuriating. She bets that whoever is doing this is watching her from a distance and laughing their ass off whenever she finds another one. As far as pranks go, it’s tame, sure, and initially that’s all that Eve thought it was. A prank. A little bizarre, sure. A bit weird, writing with these themes, and she’d worried if she should be concerned for her safety or something, what with mentions of death and all, but she doesn’t think that’s necessary. Something just tells her. 

She’s always been pretty good with her intuition. And she doesn’t think it’ll kill her now to continue trusting in it.

Probably.

*

Here’s another thing, Eve thinks staff meetings are bullshit.

She understands the purpose of them, and yeah, that’s great that they’re implementing new systems, or that the school is upgrading their technology, but inevitably, someone or two or seven misses the meeting, and then they have to all get this recap email. And the email says exactly what Principal Martens said in the meeting, so what was the point of having the meeting at all, because apparently unlike Frank’s students, Eve is not illiterate. She can read, and she’s far better off not wasting her time and just skipping the meeting altogether.

She goes to take her usual seat in the auditorium and _ of fucking course,_ Frank is sitting in her seat next to Bill. She braces herself and approaches. As she draws nearer, she can hear Bill hmm-ing and hah-ing like he really doesn’t give a damn what Frank is saying, and Frank prattling on about something that Eve also probably would not give a damn about. When she reaches the row, Bill’s whole face lights up as though he’s never been happier to see her. 

Eve smiles at them both politely, then turns to Frank, “Hey fellas, so sorry to interrupt, but do you think I could take my seat?” Eve motions to where Frank is seated.

“As you can see, it’s occupied, but this one is vacant,” Frank jerks his thumb indicating the seat next to him. 

Well, shit alright. “Oh, I’m sorry, I can just wait until you are done with your conversation.” She smiles and looks away and just really hope that Frank gets the idea. She always sits between Bill and Niko at these meetings, even Frank should know that. They’re the adults in this school, they really are not the ones that should have to be dealing with seat thievery.

“That seat is perfectly fine, I don’t understand,” Frank does not get the idea. “Bill and I are talking at the moment, or is that a problem for you?”

God, this guy. “No, no it’s not.” If Frank is going to act like a child, so be it. She squeezes past Bill and Frank and makes sure to accidentally step on Frank’s foot as she passes. Picking up the couple sheets of paper on the seat that will detail their meeting, she proceeds to sit in what should be Niko’s seat. Bill looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. Frank shuffles his own papers in his lap as he readjusts his position, a little slip of familiar yellow peeking out between them, and just for a second Eve forgets how to breathe.

She stares at the tiniest sliver of yellow paper with wide eyes as Frank picks up where he left off and Eve wonders if he turns just far enough, if she can -- 

“You all right, Eve?” Bill, well meaning Bill, good intentioned but fucking this all up Bill, asks.

Frank huffs in annoyance as he whips his head to look at Eve, who looks away from the papers in Frank’s lap and looks at them hoping he didn’t catch her, but it’s too late.

“Huh, what’s this?” Shit shit shit shit, Eve can’t think fast enough, all she can think is _ shit _ and Frank pulls out a yellow memo, upon which the lines of a poem are written in perfect green calligraphy.

“It is the pain, it is the pain endures,” Frank reads in confusion. Eve so wants to snatch it out of his hands. “Your chemic beauty burned my muscles through.” She does, she yanks it from between his fingertips so fast and he cries out, “Fuck!” A few staff members turn their heads at the commotion. He clutches his palm tightly and glares at Eve. “You gave me a papercut, what the hell!” 

“Yeah, well, you’re sitting in my seat and this is mine.” Shit she shouldn’t have said that, but well, there it is. 

“Yours? How do you know it’s yours?”

“Because this is my seat, asshole!” Eve is proud that she mostly keeps the growl out of her voice. 

“A poem? Did someone leave this for you or did we all get one?” Frank asks and then looks at his fingers, inspecting the cuts. He licks them. 

And what the hell Bill, he’s supposed to be on Eve’s side but he’s checking his own papers, and of course there’s nothing in there, and Frank sees and now he’s just asking more questions. How is it that he cannot shut up?

“Who gave that to you? Have you been receiving these for a while, is that how you know what it was?” 

“Oh, fuck off, Frank. It’s none of your business,” Eve has stashed the villanelle in her purse away from prying eyes. She really wants to read it now, and also inspect the really gorgeous calligraphy, but that’s going to have to wait.

“Yeah Frank, leave her be,” Bill says and gives Eve a Look and she knows she’s going to have to explain this whole thing to him. Which she was planning on. Actually. She was going to do just that today, before the meeting started, until Frank decided to mess that up.

But now the meeting is starting as Carolyn Martens is clearing her throat at the mic, and Niko is finally arriving and he slides into his seat.

“Niko, did you know your wife has been the recipient of love poems?”

Fucking Frank. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know who wouldn't review a fic? frank


End file.
